Summary: Today’s episode is with Charlotte Kikel, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Peace-Live-Handbook-Vitality-ebook/dp/B078T4K6KC/&tag=authorhour-20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Eat in Peace to Live in Peace</a>. If you’re listening to this episode, it’s likely you’ve been trying to heal for a long time, and you’re not alone. We’ve all been taught to listen to people in white coats and numbers at the expense of understanding our own inner wisdom.<br> Charlotte believes that healing doesn’t always look like the media portrays it. True healing is more like a mosaic than a straight line. She believes that it’s possible to live in a way that promotes more health, not more sickness.<br> Charlotte is a nutritionist, an herbalist and the founder of Eat In Peace Wellness Consulting. She’s based in Austin, where I live, and she sent me her book and I loved it. This is a topic that’s not only near and dear to my heart but it’s also something frankly I just like to geek out on. We ended up meeting in person and we had a great conversation. I really encourage you to stick through the whole episode.<br> Note: There was a part where my microphone recorder – the memory card ran out of space and I didn’t see it. If I talk like I’m muted in the background for a portion of the interview, bear with me, because we fix the problem later on. <br> <br> <br> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Peace-Live-Handbook-Vitality-ebook/dp/B078T4K6KC/&tag=authorhour-20" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a>Get Charlotte’s new book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Peace-Live-Handbook-Vitality-ebook/dp/B078T4K6KC/&tag=authorhour-20" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Eat in Peace to Live in Peace</a> on Amazon.<br> Find out more at <a href="http://charlottekikel.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CharlotteKikel.com</a>.<br> <br> <br> Charlotte Kikel: Hindsight’s 20/20, right? Now, in the more spiritual framework, I think it was Rudolf Steiner that talks about how people’s life’s work can come from a wound you experience as a child.<br> That was definitely my experience, because my dad ran a sugar company. He was Vice President of Transportation of Imperial Sugar in Sugarland, Texas.<br> I literally grew up hearing about how sugar did not cause any diseases, had no fat because fat is bad, has only 16 calories a teaspoon, and is totally natural and has no effect on children’s behavior.<br> Now, my nickname as a child was ‘the exorcist’.<br> Okay, It should have been Linda Blair to be more accurate.<br> <br> But when I was hungry, I was insane. <br> <br> My body was so accustomed to sugar, but we didn’t know any of this at the time. It was just a matter of, “When Charlotte eats, she’s happy, when she doesn’t eat, she’s unhappy.”<br> My wellbeing was totally tied to food. Wven saying that creates a relaxed sensation in my body, just to acknowledge that sugar was very drug-like in my developing brain. It worked.<br> I would go from crying and angry and kicking a hole in a wall to being sweet Charlotte. It was like a possession of sorts. It all started there.<br> My dream was to have a bakery, I was going to call it “Room for Dessert,” because I loved baking. Baking made me happy, eating it made me happy, giving it to other people made me happy—until I realized that it was causing me a lot of problems.<br> <br> When Everything Changed<br> Charlie Hoehn: What was the tipping point where you started becoming aware?<br> Charlotte Kikel: Once again, in retrospect, there were lots of signs along the way, which is one of the things that my book attempts to point out. People catch this early to where they don’t end up in the hospital like I did.<br> That was my turning point, was when I ended up in the emergency room and they couldn’t really tell me what was wrong. What they said was, “It looks like your gallbladder is going to need to be remo...
